BUS company Arriva has this week increased the frequency of its services between Guildford and Cranleigh.

At the same time it has cut the cost of a day return ticket from £5 to £4 to coincide with the introduction of the new timetable on Tuesday.

The move follows the launch of a new service between Guildford and Cranleigh by rival bus operator Countryliner on Saturday.

Arriva’s publicity manager, Richard Lewis, said that before the government carried out its recent review of finances the company’s long-established services 53 and 63 had been selected to receive ‘Kickstart’ funding from the Department of Transport. This, he explained, would have been used to upgrade both the vehicles and frequency of the buses on these routes.

“That funding will no longer be forthcoming, but we have taken the decision to increase, at our own commercial risk, the frequency between the towns from three buses an hour to every fifteen minutes,” added Mr Lewis.

Meanwhile, Countryliner’s director of compliance, Neil Hatcher, has denied his company’s move heralded the start of a ‘bus war’, saying: “We are just trying to give people a further choice to what is already there.”

The new Countryliner service will run between Cranleigh’s Summerlands estate and Guildford bus station, via the town’s railway station.

The route 464 bus will operate a half-hourly daytime service from Monday to Saturday, except on public holidays.

“It does provide a number of new features, including a through service to Woking via Guildford railway station on an hourly basis and a regular service for the Summerlands area of Cranleigh,” said Mr Hatcher.

The Arriva service to Cranleigh has traditionally included a far less frequent service to Summerlands.

“Arriva also operates what are described as full-size vehicles, whereas our vehicles are three-quarters of the length,” explained Mr Hatcher. “Because they are a shorter wheel-base you don’t lose a lot of seating. They also have a low floor and they are a lot easier to negotiate roads such as those on Summerlands without it scaring the hell out of cars coming the other way.”

Claiming that Countryliner was able to offer “more competitive fares”, Mr Hatcher said: “We have many people commenting to us about what they consider very high fares.

“We are trying to offer people in Cranleigh and the outlying villages a service not only to Guildford bus station, but to Guildford railway station and on to Woking. For the past nine years we have been operating between Guildford and Woking and thought this was a natural progression.”

Mr Hatcher said that if its new service proved successful it would consider widening its incursions into Cranleigh’s housing areas. Through fares were available, as well as daily, weekly and monthly tickets, with the initial cost of a Cranleigh to Guildford return being £3.50, he said.